One Arm Might Be Better Than Two for Rethink Robotics

Robotics  

Priced very low, Sawyer, from Rethink Robotics is a single arm, high performance, collaborative robot designed to execute machine tending, circuit board testing and other precise tasks. Along with its 'bigger brother' Baxter, Sawyer could shake up the manufacturing industry.

Rethink Robotics, the makers of the inexpensive, flexible robot Baxter, have introduced a new simpler model called Sawyer, who only has one arm.  The price point for the robot is just $29,000 US.

Like Baxter, Sawyer can still perform many tasks. It can assemble goods on the factory floor day after day, without fail, without tiring, without taking bathroom breaks, or asking for for a raise.

According to Rethink Robotics,

Sawyer is a significant addition to the Rethink Robotics family of smart collaborative robotics, giving manufacturers the high performance automation they need for a wider range of tasks, while maintaining the critical flexibility, safety and interactive user experience that have become synonymous with our brand.

You should expect to see Sawyer tinkering with circuit boards alongside its human colleagues on the factory floor, says creator Rodney Brooks, of Boston-based company Rethink Robotics.

Rethink Robotics' Rodney Brooks with Sawyer and Baxter

"We're aiming at the electronics assembly industry—and most of that will be in Asia," said the Australian-born engineer, who is also behind iRobot, the company that now makes Roomba vacuum cleaner robots and military robots.

Related articles Peter W. Singer On The Robot Revolution  Rodney Brooks on Robots in the Workplace  Rodney Brooks Says Connected Robots Will Change Our Lives

Sawyer's unusual one-arm design came after Rethink engineers analyzed over 150 factory tasks, and found that many could be done with just a single limb.

"In the U.S. the average age of a factory worker is over 55—people don't want those jobs!"

The $29,000 robot will be a "baby brother" to Baxter, a larger two-armed robot launched in 2012 and better suited to heavy lifting than fiddly maneuvers. Both have animated eyes that look in the direction they're about to reach to aid in human-robot interaction.

Sawyer and Baxter are both named after archaic English words for professions—"Sawyer" means someone who saws wood, and "Baxter" means a woman who bakes.

"The names are for old professions that aren't in use anymore," explained Brooks.

Will Sawyer be a job killer?  Brooks doesn't think so. "If it was the case that people were lining up wanting factory jobs, then that would be a valid fear. But in the U.S. the average age of a factory worker is over 55—people don't want those jobs!" says the former director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

"When people say to me 'robots are going to take away jobs,' I always ask them 'do you want your child to work in a factory?' And they always say to me 'oh no, not my child, but you know, other people's children.'"

Sawyer will be available later this year.


SOURCE  CNN Money

By 33rd Square

Embed